According to numbers from Morgan Stanley, which are now enlarged by the NAB payments, the big four banks spent more than $2 billion on customer refunds and remediation in the 2018 financial year (pre-tax), or about $2.4 billion to be exact.

In an industry with an annual profit pool of somewhere around $50 billion, investors might be tempted to look past these figures. Indeed, NAB shares rose on Tuesday.

The big four banks spent more than $2 billion on customer refunds and remediation in the 2018 financial year (pre-tax). Fairfax Media

But these refunds are much more than just a cost of doing business.

This is merely the first instalment in a series of payments the banks will need to make to restore their social licence to operate.

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Morgan Stanley expects remediation in the 2019 financial year will be at least $2 billion, but in truth it's hard to come up with a good estimate, for two reasons.

First, the banks are only part way through the reviews of customer files and accounts, and while it is expected they are, as an industry, closer to the end of this process than the start, there are no guarantees.

Indeed, it's notable that NAB says in its release that "customer remediation programs are expected to continue into 2018-19, with potential for further costs, which remain uncertain at this point in time".

Uncertain is not a word that investors love to hear under any circumstances. The ghosts in the group's wealth business – particularly around fees for no service – may not have been exorcised quite yet.

The second reason it is hard to come up with a more accurate estimate of the banks' remediation bill is the sheer costs of running these remediation processes.

When ANZ announced its $374 million hit for customer remediation last week, it revealed just over 40 per cent, or $160 million, was related to the costs associated with running the product reviews that underpin compensation efforts – reconstructing customer accounts, hiring external advisers for assurance and legal costs.

But Comyn was trying to make the point that about $400 million of this $850 million was associated with the costs of running the program.

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NAB, which will front the House committee on Friday, says about 31 per cent of its remediation charge is related to expenses. It has installed group legal counsel Sharon Cook as the head of its remediation efforts, creating a necessary and important focal point for the program but also another cost centre.

All this talk about the costs of these programs is not designed to elicit sympathy for the banks. They don't deserve it, and they won't get it.

But it is a reminder that investors do pay a real price for misconduct and loss of social licence – eventually.

The fat profits bank investors have enjoyed for much of the past decade were clearly built, to some extent at least, on customers being ripped off by banks that were either too greedy to change their ways, or too stingy to invest in the systems that would detect these problems.

Not only are the banks now being forced to hand back some of those profits, but they are also having to spend up big – or "invest" in the words of Matt Comyn – on compliance and risk systems and processes that should have been in place years ago.

This process isn't close to being over.

The remediation impairment, which will wipe $261 million off NAB's 2018 cash earnings when they are released on November 1, guarantees a messy result for chief executive Andrew Thorburn.

Remember too that Thorburn is in the midst of a strategic reset, slashing costs, product numbers and investing in technology upgrades. This is a result that will be heavily scrutinised.